mybuilder.com?

Leif

clockworks wrote: »

I used my builder on two occasions in the last 6 weeks. I went with people with good feedback and have no qualms. It's a good service and stick to people with good feedback and you won't have a problem.

The bathroom fitter I used had 47 glowing reviews, they were amazing. Their work was below the legally acceptable standard. The boiler installer had glowing reviews, but they used an undersized gas pipe. The boiler servicer had glowing reviews. Unfortunately the reviews are worthless, something is very wrong.

nickj_2

Leif wrote: »

The bathroom fitter I used had 47 glowing reviews, they were amazing. Their work was below the legally acceptable standard. The boiler installer had glowing reviews, but they used an undersized gas pipe. The boiler servicer had glowing reviews. Unfortunately the reviews are worthless, something is very wrong.

when you have no idea who is submitting the reivews you're on a sticky wicket, they could be genuine , or it could be his mates or even his own creations........ until there is a genuine link to work carried out by genuine customers then at best i would treat them as a work of fiction

diywhynot

In a word, avoid.

keystone

In a smaller word, Noo!

Cheers

Alilawren

Jib111 wrote: »

Hi we are renovating our 1920s house and it's got to the time now that we are ready to re-plaster pretty much every room.

The man who we would like to do our work is busy on his own house until July so we need to find someone else.

So I just want to know if these reviews seem legit and would you trust what people have posted about them?

Might seem a little silly but you can never be too sure in today's world.

Many thanks.

Oh my fried you are so right to question the authenticity of any supplier been recommended by Mybuilder.com. Sadly from recent experience I have found that the supplier with 100% excellent feedback might not be the case and in my opinion is not worth the pixels they are written in!
Why because there process is flawed and is i place to protect their supplier wherever possible and not in the favour of you and I. Again Why? Because they make there money by selling our leads to these builders and tradesmen. I tried to hire a company called Rylan Home Improvements and a chap called Peter Judge. Well you can Judge for yourself if the reason for Mybuilder.com reason for refusing to uphill my complain was valid.
I accepted Rylan Home Improvements quote from Mybuilder.com after they spent a good deal of time at my rental property with my tenant doing a detailed site survey prior to a quote. Peter Judge was convicting on the phone and left me with the clear impression that there was a lot of work to do to put right the old prep work done prior to plastering. He kept slagging my old builder off, who died before he could finish. iPad left the work for 18month before getting it completed and it was this time and the subsequent damp environment that had changed to old quality of the boards not his bad work.
Anyhow I decided to accept this quote above all others, even though it was the most expensive by far. Because I was assured that he would be able to put right the old word and produce a reasonable job (I expressed I did not need it A1 finish as it was an outside summer room). So dispute the fact it was advertised as an immediate start job, I was going to have to wait 3 weeks (after he said he could start in 1) then as that time approached this turned into 6 weeks. Then some !!!! and bull story about Van MOT fail delayed his start by another day.
Day one went like this they arrived on site in the morning brought their toot on site and started measuring up. They started asking lots of question about access around the back to my tenant. He told them that they could not gain access through the neighbours garden to get to the back and everything needed to come through the house ( I also told Peter Judge this on several occasions) the partner who had not seen the site before started winging to Peter about how time consuming it was going to be to get all the screed for the floor carried through the house etc.. The started to do some measuring up and quiet conversations. This was then followed by a call to me. guess what after 30 minutes on site the job was now going to cost me another £300 to put buttons up and new pleaser board. I said I wanted to think about it for 10 minutes and look at the quote and I would probably arrive at the property to do this bit of the work myself.

Looked at the quote (sorry estimate as Peter corrected me) which clearly stated time and materials for 'putting right the uneven walls'. Anyway this is a long story so will cut short at this stage, when I eventually got a through to them, they had packed up and left the site, told the tenant that I was going to do the work first and left 'to price up another job' I called there bluff and said to start on other work on the job, but they could not do that etc etc.

Back to Mybuilder.com poor poor poor. Wrote a review, deleted an hour later clawing that because they did not start work or I did not have a contract I place or paid any money to them that they would not accept my review. WHAT.? After the time waisted waiting for these builders and the spent weeks holiday my tenant has lost so he could let them do the work this week I am not allowed to give an honest review of this firm! Gob smacked so they still have 100% positive feedback. Also I have since seen other posts elsewhere suggesting that if a builder does have negative feedback, all they have to do is withdraw the self from quoting for the job, which they can do post job, and the negative Feedback also is withdrawn. I am not sure if this is the case or not but have read it on several blogs since even once by a builder!!

So very long answer to you question but one I hope people will be able to make their own assessment of. Can you rely on Mybuilders.com ratings for builders. In my personal opinion NO not until they stop favouring the had that feeds them!

evoke

I've used MyBuilder for a whole-house refurbishment with a moderate amount of success. I went by the feedback and actually read the feedback as some of it was suspicious!

I always made sure that the tradesmen came round to give me a quote for any job above £50 (some of the jobs were upwards of £6K, some were around £50).

I always Google'd the company that I wanted to use in case they were mentioned on other sites.

Some of the tradesmen wanted me to cancel the job and just deal with them directly. This gives them two advantages: they don't pay a fee to the site for the job and I wouldn't be able to give them feedback. I got stung by that scam a couple of times, I have to say. Lesson learned was this: never take on a tradesman who wants to take the work outside of the site and deal with you directly - they are usually going to scam you.

However, on balance, the site worked well for me.

Jo12

I've just had a nasty experience with someone I got from my.builder - see separate thread on 'cowboy builder ripped me off' -says its all really!

Like others on here, my neighbours etc are all DIY masters and so have never hired anyone to do the work I wanted, so couldn't recommend. I did the usual checks and thought he would be ok and he wasn't.
I am going to complain to them, but by the sounds of things, that wont get me very far. Its not right if someone does give you a shoddy job and you went through them in the first place and then cant even complain!

mehera

How to avoid Cowboys:

- Dont use big companys like BG or B & Q for starters!

- Use local tradesmen who are skilled in their particular trade. They are small guys who stake their reputation on doing good work!

- I hate to say this but - project manange yourself. You will save money and you can make sure the job is done properly by tradesmen who are experts in their chosen field.

- Aviod 'general builders' where possible. You really need to be careful here as these guys could be sub contracting the work out to anyone!

- Dont use my builder ect as they are no guarantee of finding quality tradesmen.

Word of mouth is the best way forward!

SternMusik

I have had good experience with mybuilder personally. However if possible I rely on personal recommendations. Especially for plastering, you want to see their previous work if at all possible; expectations about quality can vary widely amongst trades and also customers.

Recently I had a terrible experience with plasterers who were sent in by a reputable local kitchen company. They did an absolutely terrible job (my neighbours' four year-old could have achieved a similar finish with some play-doh). They came back once to make good but it was still not acceptable in many places. I ended up having to get someone else in to do it all again (via mybuilder, actually, as it had to happen within a day or two). Worst of all, the kitchen company thought all the job needed was a little sanding, and the original plasterer thought it was fine and became threatening!

My advice is to go by recommendations, and take a look at their previous work. Poor plastering can realy ruin the look of a room.